Partnership recap: Better, faster, stronger
In the summer of 2021, when Rockland Trust rolled out the YourBanker service in partnership with Agent IQ, they saw rapid adoption, with more than 10,000 customers using the service in the first 45 days — no marketing push required. Within 90 days, the number of Rockland Trust customers using YourBanker doubled to over 20,000. YourBanker is an AI-augmented service that allows Rockland Trust customers to select a primary banker directly from their digital banking platform. That primary banker becomes their continuous point of contact for all their banking needs with 24/7 asynchronous chat. Fast forward to the summer of 2023, and more than 153,000 Rockland Trust customers are using the YourBanker service — and still without any significant marketing campaign.
An opportunity to impress
As a $20B Boston-based institution, Rockland Trust had a sophisticated tech stack to support its customer-facing operations. That said, Rockland Trust realized that its most valuable asset is its celebrated ability to build personal relationships with its customers. Agent IQ’s Lynq platform fits well into Rockland’s strategy and goals — integrating seamlessly into their existing mobile and digital banking platforms. The leadership at Rockland Trust quickly realized that there was also potential to further support their customers and equip staff to deliver their award-winning white-glove service. Through regular meetings with the Agent IQ team over the last two years, the Rockland leadership learned about new features — often in response to feedback from the Rockland team — that became available in the Lynq platform. This collaborative relationship between fintech and institution allowed Rockland to explore new possibilities and roll out new features in a sustainable way.
YourBanker allows customers to choose which banker they want to speak with and maintain a continuous, asynchronous conversation — no more re-explaining each time they ask for help. Staff members can even bring subject matter experts, such as loan officers, into the discussion when needed and utilize co-browsing to visually guide customers through their banking experience.
Building on the initial success
Nobody could have anticipated the pace at which customers adopted YourBanker. While the value proposition resonated from both an organizational and user perspective, it is difficult to predict how consumers will behave once the initial excitement wears off.
Since the launch in May 2021, there has been no slowing down for the YourBanker activity. With near-linear adoption, the vast majority of Rockland Trust customers can engage their own dedicated banker anytime and anywhere.
And customers do much more than just adopt the service. Since the launch of YourBanker, the number of conversations has continued to increase rapidly with more than 200 customers engaging a personal banker daily.
It has been said that “behind every customer is a story that cannot be found in aggregate data” — and nothing could be more true for YourBanker. Lynq’s AI-powered analysis of conversation topics show that customers engage on many topics — far beyond account and basic service questions.
New capabilities that transformed Rockland’s operation
Unlike traditional, labor-intensive software roll-outs, Agent IQ releases new Lynq features in an agile cadence every 2 weeks. Clients such as Rockland can simply choose the latest feature they want to use. Turning them on is as easy as flipping a switch. Over the past 12 months, Rockland deployed the following features for their customers all while continuing to use the same Lynq dashboard to service their rapidly growing customer base.
Unauthenticated/anonymous web chat and co-browsing
Rockland already offered a consumer-facing web chat tool on its website when YourBanker launched, but when they saw how Agent IQ’s unauthenticated (no login required) AI-powered web chat could help customers self-service their needs, they decided to switch. Supporting this unauthenticated chat service with the same Lynq Dashboard as the authenticated service embedded in the digital banking UX meant greater efficiency and no additional training. Rockland also launched the co-browsing feature for unauthenticated users so staff could screen-share and guide consumers through the digital banking experience.
Video chat
Slated for Rockland’s digital banking fall software release, video chat will be available for authenticated users within YourBanker, with the option to use it for unauthenticated users as well. This feature adds an important layer of connection for Rockland’s customers and cements the sense of working 1-on-1 with the same personal banker every time.
Small-to-medium business banking support
With the success of YourBanker on the retail side of the business, Rockland decided to roll out the service to their 25,000 SMB clients in December 2022. These clients already had access to a selection of relationship managers and many already had an existing relationship in place. Agent IQ created a unique customer experience for these clients and pulled in data from Salesforce to automatically connect users with the right relationship manager or allow them to choose. SMB clients can also use the AI-augmented self-service capabilities that were initially available only to retail consumers.
Real-time translation support for 100+ languages
Rockland’s customer base spans many diverse markets where languages other than English are the native tongue. To successfully service these markets often requires hiring native speaking employees, which can often prove challenging. But in 2021, when Rockland acquired East Boston Savings Bank (EBSB) and a large number of Spanish-speaking customers came with it, there was a need to find a better way to scale their support. Thanks to the real-time translation feature of the Lynq platform, Rockland’s staff were able to translate in-language customer requests with the click of a button. Staff were also able to type their responses in English and immediately translate them in the chat dialogue. This experience of using YourBanker at Rockland proved to EBSB’s customers that they were in the best of hands at their new institution.
A responsive partnership
New technology integrations can be agonizing for financial institutions. In this case, Rockland’s team embraced Agent IQ’s client success team and together launched each feature without crashing systems or overwhelming anyone. This allowed Rockland to enhance their relationship banking service. And customers love it too. As Rockland identified new opportunities to serve its account holders, Agent IQ’s features were ready to launch. This level of collaboration delivered a two-fold benefit by increasing efficiency on routine tasks and unlocking completely new avenues to serve and delight customers beyond the in-branch experience.
Curious to learn more?
Contact us today at hello@agentiq.com to learn how Agent IQ can help your institution create a digital relationship banking model at scale.
